When applications and/or systems are developed and deployed onto an enterprise network infrastructure, system performance often suffers if an application has been designed without careful regard for distance between tiers, underlying transport protocols, message flows, network configuration and dynamics, etc. Similarly when new systems are placed onto the network, their configuration often needs to be managed or optimized to obtain the performance required. Furthermore, during system configuration and deployment, often times there is a need for quantification of the performance that can be expected from the system configuration.
Existing commercial products let an expert study the impact of various system design parameters, such as, distance between tiers, underlying transport protocols, application parameters, etc., on the final performance of an application system. However, these commercial products require advanced expertise in system design and configuration from the interacting user. As a result, the existing products are far more involved to use and cannot be readily leveraged by application designers or deployment engineers.
Thus, there is a need for an application and infrastructure performance analysis and forecasting system that bridges the gap between the consumers of the analysis (application designers and deployment engineers) and the expertise embodied in the invention. That is, there is a need for a comprehensive and easy-to-use application and infrastructure performance analysis and forecasting system that provides the same advisory expertise for application designers and deployment engineers, as can be used by experts with advanced knowledge in this field.